The present invention relates to an improved message delivery system for delivering a prerecorded message to a number of telephone lines simultaneously.
Recording units are currently used to broadcast a message stored on a single recording medium simultaneously to multiple callers over multiple telephone lines. In one type of device currently used for this purpose, a magnetic tape cartridge or a solid state memory is used to store a message which is repeatedly broadcast. Commonly available devices of this type provide a number of important disadvantages. First, when any portion of such a message is to be changed, the entire message must be prepared again. Second, when continuous loop cartridges are used, the maximum message length is limited to the recording capacity of a single cartridge, and the length of the message must equal the loop time of the continuous loop cartridge if time is not to be lost while the cartridge advances from the end of the message to the start of the message on the same loop.
Another disadvantage of such devices is that a failure such as breakage of a continuous tape loop tends to produce a dramatic degradation in system performance. For example, a broadcasting device which utilizes only a single continuous loop cartridge can fail altogether if that cartridge fails.
The present invention is directed to an improved message delivery system which to a large extent overcomes these and other disadvantages of message delivery systems of the type described above.